While Weiss may be convinced that the Nobel Peace Prize award to President Obama "is all about Israel/Palestine…. an effort by the northern Europeans to give Obama political capital to put pressure on Israel," I have to report that this was not the top concern of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. In searching for motives for the award, one should go directly to the Committee’s statement, which I include at the bottom of this post, and which emphasized nuclear nonproliferation.
The Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee is Thorbjørn Jageland, a former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister and a long-time Labor Party (Social Democratic) politician. Jageland served as Vice-Chair of the Mitchell Commission, which investigated the causes of the Second Intifada, so he is intimately familiar with Israeli/Palestinian issues. But Jageland also reported that the award to Obama was "unanimous" and came with ease. While Jageland serves on the Nobel committee with another former Labor Party cabinet minister and an ex-parliamentarian from the Socialist Left Party, the committee’s Deputy Chairman is a former cabinet minister and head of the Conservative Party, and the remaining committee member is an ex-parliamentarian of the Progressive Party, Norway’s equivalent to our "tea baggers." Both the Conservative Party and the Progress Party are staunchly pro-Israel, so it is unlikely their members would have gone along with an award to Obama mainly so he could pressure the Israelis.
Jageland just won a vote to serve as Secretary General of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg with the support of Russia. The extent of Obama’s concrete actions may be in dispute, but his decision not to go ahead with Bush’s plan for ABM sites in Poland and Czech had to be welcomed by Jageland and the Norwegians. The Norwegians have always supported nuclear arms control and disarmament, going so far as to ban nuclear weapons from its territory. Sharing a border with Russia, American provocations toward the Russians has always been a delicate foreign policy problem for Norway. With the more recent discovery of oil and gas in the Barents Sea, there has been tough bargaining between the two countries over their sub-sea border and the resulting drilling rights. Norway is also trying to win a future role for its industry in Russian deep-sea oil and gas exploration. And more contentiously, pressing to overturn an outrageous court judgement which confiscated Norwegian state-owned Telenor’s interest in a profitable Russian mobile phone system. Economic cooperation with Russia and Norwegian membership in NATO work at cross-purposes when NATO is aggressively maneuvering against Russian strategic economic and defense interests. Russian President Medvedev praised the Nobel award to Obama.
The Norwegians have also always been fervent promoters of international institutions and the use of diplomacy for the peaceful resolution of conflicts. Due to its small population and proximity to Russia, Norway had little choice but to join NATO for protection after World War II. After 9/11 the US compelled the previously-defensive NATO to fight for the first time outside its original European theater. Military contributions to the war in Afghanistan became a test of loyalty to NATO and the United States. While the European Right and the ex-colonial Brits were at least ideologically willing to sign up for the Afghanistan adventure, for Social Democratic Norway sending troops to Afghanistan was a domestic controversy. In the end Norway sent troops to Afghanistan, but a good part of the population remains unenthusiastic. As in the US, the populist Right drives so much of the political agenda in Norway these days, even though the Labor Party and its allies have just been re-elected for another term. Today, the right-wing Progressive Party pressured the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, into stating that he would go along with materially supporting any Afghanistan troop increase decided by Obama. For all the other political parties in Norway, an Obama decision to downsize the fighting in Afghanistan would relieve them of a political hot potato.
Moreover, Statoil, the Norwegian state-owned oil company has a sizable investment in Iran. Until now, the Norwegians have avoided the wrath of the US government, but the proposed new sanctions on Iran currently before the Congress would be an expensive nightmare for Norway. With Congressional passage of the sanctions, either Norway’s investment in Iran or its investments in the US would be at risk. US diplomatic talks with Iran and a holding off of further sanctions would save Norway from a difficult economic choice.
On the other hand, I believe Norwegians suffer from Oslo fatigue and have disengaged from their previous role in the I-P conflict. Norwegian politicians are weary of the contentious arguments with Israel and the attempts by Israelis and their supporters to regularly label Norwegians as anti-Semites – a weekly occurrence since the Netanyahu government entered office. Even Jageland has been reticent in his criticisms of Israel these last years.
The more I consider it, the more the award make sense from a Norwegian perspective. But the Nobel Committee’s decision has been almost as controversial in Norway as it has been here (excluding the insane rants of American Conservatives which are opposed to Nobel peace efforts on ideological principle). Time will tell whether the Nobel Committee bet on the right guy.
P.S. Here is the Nobel statement:
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."
